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skim
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
skim
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
skimmed milkBritish English, skim milk/nonfat milk American English (= milk that has had all the fat taken out)
▪ a bowl of cereal with skim milk
skimmed milk
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
along
▪ He reached for the bat and sent it skimming along the boards.
▪ Laverne zips across the empty road, the airborne snakes skim along after him.
▪ I've learnt that life is deeper than I'd thought and certainly not meant to be skimmed along.
off
▪ It is advisable to leave the bucket loosely covered and not to skim off the yeast head.
▪ Cover loosely and keep in a warm place for about 4 hours. Skim off any foam.
▪ The breezes seemed to skim off the water like stones.
▪ Remove legs to a serving platter and keep warm. Skim off any visible fat.
▪ Boil for 10 minutes, skimming off any scum.
▪ Place over medium-high heat and reduce by half, skimming off any fat that accumulates on surface.
▪ Then skim off the fat, pour the juices back into the roasting tin and bubble them up.
▪ If desired, add nuts, celery, 131 Remove from heat and skim off excess fat.
over
▪ A long-line jacket with tapered trousers skims over any figure flaws.
▪ The considerations of adult sexuality have been skimmed over rather superficially, all the same, in this chapter.
▪ He could see it skimming over the surface of the black waters of the Liffey far below.
▪ In the introduction, Blake skims over various stylistic approaches and attempts to justify his own.
▪ Warm sun, birds singing and dragonflies skimming over the pool.
■ NOUN
surface
▪ But corporate-responsibility campaigners and ethical consumers are only beginning to skim the surface.
▪ From here I watch a patrol of pelicans skim the ocean surface while waves crash against the rocks.
▪ He could see it skimming over the surface of the black waters of the Liffey far below.
▪ This probably would have been its only chance to skim the water surface for some six months.
▪ This paper has barely skimmed the surface.
▪ It would take a hundred lifetimes merely to skim the surface and, alas, we are only given one.
water
▪ The breezes seemed to skim off the water like stones.
▪ Cleanup crews, meanwhile, skimmed oil off the water and lowered the boom.
▪ It skimmed low over the water.
▪ The second time they skimmed along the water for two miles, only to fail again.
▪ Try and make the end of the boom skim the water.
▪ This probably would have been its only chance to skim the water surface for some six months.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He threw a flat stone and watched it skim the surface of the lake.
▪ I skimmed the newspaper but didn't see any report on the demonstration.
▪ Jack opened the paper and skimmed the headlines.
▪ Planes skimmed the treetops as they flew in with tanks full of water to put out the fire.
▪ Seagulls skimmed the water, looking for fish.
▪ She didn't have much time so she just skimmed through the report before the meeting.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But fashion, as always, changed and the short skirt fell - literally - from favour and started skimming the ankles.
▪ He skimmed through the piece quickly, barely concentrating.
▪ Her mind skimmed back to the dinner on Friday night.
▪ Or, the reader may have merely skimmed the second paragraph and sent back an incomplete form.
▪ She picked up the stick and hurled it, skimming it low over the shallow pools left by the tide.
▪ The first hour proved fairly turbulent, as we skimmed under some cumulus build-ups.
▪ When stock is cold, skim fat from the top.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Skim

Skim \Skim\, a. Contraction of Skimming and Skimmed.

Skim coat, the final or finishing coat of plaster.

Skim colter, a colter for paring off the surface of land.

Skim milk, skimmed milk; milk from which the cream has been taken.

Skim

Skim \Skim\, v. i.

  1. To pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface.

    Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
    --Pope.

  2. To hasten along with superficial attention.

    They skim over a science in a very superficial survey.
    --I. Watts.

  3. To put on the finishing coat of plaster.

Skim

Skim \Skim\ (sk[i^]m), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Skimmed (sk[i^]md); p. pr. & vb. n. Skimming.] [Cf. Sw. skymma to darken.

  1. To clear (a liquid) from scum or substance floating or lying thereon, by means of a utensil that passes just beneath the surface; as, to skim milk; to skim broth.

  2. To take off by skimming; as, to skim cream.

  3. To pass near the surface of; to brush the surface of; to glide swiftly along the surface of.

    Homer describes Mercury as flinging himself from the top of Olympus, and skimming the surface of the ocean.
    --Hazlitt.

  4. Fig.: To read or examine superficially and rapidly, in order to cull the principal facts or thoughts; as, to skim a book or a newspaper.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
skim

early 15c. (skimmer, the utensil, is attested from late 14c.), "to clear (a liquid) from matter floating on the surface, lift the scum from," from Old French escumer "remove scum," from escume (Modern French écume) "scum," from a Germanic source (compare Old High German scum "scum," German Schaum; see scum). Meaning "to throw (a stone) so as to skip across the surface of (water) is from 1610s. Meaning "to move lightly and rapidly over the surface of" is from 1650s, from the motion involved in skimming liquid; that of "to glance over carelessly" (in reference to printed matter) recorded by 1799. Related: Skimmed; skimming.

Wiktionary
skim
  1. (context of milk English) Having lowered fat content. v

  2. 1 (context intransitive English) To pass lightly; to glide along in an even, smooth course; to glide along near the surface. 2 (context transitive English) To pass near the surface of; to brush the surface of; to glide swiftly along the surface of. 3 To hasten along with superficial attention. 4 To put on a finishing coat of plaster. 5 (context transitive English) to throw an object so it bounces on water (''skimming stones'') 6 (context intransitive English) to ricochet 7 (context transitive English) to read quickly, skipping some detail 8 (context transitive English) to scrape off; to remove (something) from a surface 9 (context transitive English) to clear (a liquid) from scum or substance floating or lying on it, by means of a utensil that passes just beneath the surface. 10 (context transitive English) to clear a liquid from (scum or substance floating or lying on it), especially the cream that floats on top of fresh milk

WordNet
skim
  1. n. a thin layer covering the surface of a liquid; "there was a thin skim of oil on the water"

  2. reading or glancing through quickly [syn: skimming]

  3. [also: skimming, skimmed]

skim
  1. v. travel on the surface of water [syn: plane]

  2. move or pass swiftly and lightly over the surface of [syn: skim over]

  3. examine hastily; "She scanned the newspaper headlines while waiting for the taxi" [syn: scan, rake, glance over, run down]

  4. cause to skip over a surface; "Skip a stone across the pond" [syn: skip, skitter]

  5. coat (a liquid) with a layer

  6. remove from the surface; "skim cream from the surface of milk" [syn: skim off, cream off, cream]

  7. read superficially [syn: skim over]

  8. [also: skimming, skimmed]

skim
  1. adj. used of milk and milk products from which the cream has been removed; "yogurt made with skim milk"; "she can drink skimmed milk but should avoid butter" [syn: skimmed]

  2. [also: skimming, skimmed]

Wikipedia
Skim

Skim or skimming may refer to:

Skim (software)

Skim is an open-source PDF reader. It is notably the first free software PDF reader for Mac OS X. It is written in Objective-C, and uses Cocoa APIs. It is released under a BSD license. It is also cited as being able to help annotate and read scientific papers.

Skim (comics)

Skim is a Canadian graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and drawn by Jillian Tamaki. Set in 1993, in a Toronto Catholic girls high school, it is about an outsider girl called Skim.

Usage examples of "skim".

The rival aeroplane was now skimming above the water at a height of about a thousand feet.

Nick picked up the agenda for 1979 and skimmed through the pages, finding the first referral to Goldluxe on March 13, 1979.

As he spoke he raised his arbalest to his shoulder and was about to pull the trigger, when a large gray stork flapped heavily into view skimming over the brow of the hill, and then soaring up into the air to pass the valley.

The further precaution that if any dross be on the surface of the metal it shall be skimmed off and separately sampled and assayed is almost too obvious to require mention.

These are fitted with attemperators, and parachutes for the removal of yeast, in much the same way as in the skimming system.

Rather, they had resigned themselves and their budlings to less than their share of the wonders of the modern world: houses that thought, scudders and floaters, falqon-mail that flew from continent to continent where pitchens had only skimmed, communications that no longer called for nervograps, recordimals offering faithful transcriptions of the greatest thinkers and entertainers, newsimals and scentimals and haulimals, and the rest.

It was no skin off his nose if the average cowhand worked his ass off for just a dollar a day and grub, only to get skimmed by everybody from those check cashers to the barkeeps who jacked up the price of bar liquor on a payday weekend.

In the beginning, the tax code skimmed only a small percentage off the incomes of the very top earners -- taxpayers rich enough that they had little incentive to avoid taxes.

First Councillor had altered his exoskeletal posture, skimming over to them like a swimmer.

It was wintertime clear enough, for there were no larks rising on the hills or swooping plovers--only big flocks of skimming grey fieldfares, and strings of honking geese passing south, and solemn congregations of bustards, and in the wet places clouds of squattering wildfowl.

It was running out of juice, skimming low, ruby flimmer reflected in rain-stippled puddles.

Her gaze skimmed over Darby, who was in a deep conversation with General Manager Clark Gamache, and landed on Luc where he leaned against the end of the bar, talking to a tall blond woman in a white slip dress.

Then she saw a long line of Canada geese, necks outstretched and wings flapping hard, skim the tops of the trees.

From being alone in the Void until your mind screams for contactfrom skimming whole planets with your thoughts, hungering for the touch of a familiar soul.

He skimmed over the episode of the Kebar Canal to get to the court session and his garden visit with Tamar.